TO P. B. AXELROD

Published:First published in 1925 inLenin Miscellany III.

      Sent from Munich to Zurich.

      Printed from the original.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1971,

      Moscow,Volume 36,

      pages84-85.Translated:Andrew RothsteinTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive.You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

June 1, 1901

Wehave just received your letter with the materials
and letters of
Deb.[1][3]enclosed. Many thanks; we shall
have to sort out the material.

Asregards Deb.’s proposal, we agree of course to let
him have 300 offprints, and we hope that his reservations
will not present the slightest obstacle to our printing his
reminiscences. The deadline for No. 2 ofZaryais one month,
i.e., July 1. The maximum length is 2 sheets, or 2 1/2 at the
outside. We hope that he will divide up his 4–5 sheets into
chapters, so that they will fit into No. 2 and No. 3 ofZarya.

Weknow nothing as yet about the
conference.[4]Please
persuade Koltsov and someone else fromSotsial-Demokratto agree. After all, this does not commit anyone to anything,
but it removes from us the odium of being unwilling to stop
the dissension. We really are not inclined to make any
substantial concessions either toBorbaor toRabocheye
Dyelo(how feeble No. 7 of itsListokis[5]! We have already
left it behind even technically, in speed of coverage).

No.5ofIskrais at the press. The leading article is “About
Vacuous Dreams” (by Starover). A feature article by G. V.,
“New Wine in Old Bottles”, is about the manifesto of
the Socialist-Revolutionaries and their turn towards the
Social-Democrats. Then one (or even two) short articles on
the massacre of May 4–7 in St. Petersburg (in Vyborgskaya
Storona and at the Obukhov Works). There is also some
pretty good material for the social chronicle and the labourmovement section, and also for the “May Day in Russia”
section—for instance, a vivid letter from a St. Petersburg
working woman about the killing on May 4 of a workman
(her relative) in the crowd marching to Nevsky
Prospekt.[6]There is a letter from our close friend, a worker at

Ivanovo-Voznesensk,[7]about the feeling there, the attempts to
celebrate May Day and the success ofIskra.

Onlythe financial side is in a bad way; all the rest is
going well, with promise for the future.

Howis your health? Is it easier for you now in yourErwerbsarbeit[2]?

Do you get enough rest? How do you intend
to spend the summer?

Verybest wishes to you and all your family.

Yours,Petrov

[1]Weshall, of course, preserve his letter.—Lenin

[2]Workfor a living.—Ed.

[3]Deb.—V. K. Debogory-Mokrievich, a revolutionary Narodnik
of the 1870s, who lived in Bulgaria from 1894 and died there.
In 1901, theZaryaEditorial Board asked him for some extract
from his memoirs. Although he agreed, and the members of the
editorial board corresponded on the subject, his memoirs were
not published inZarya.

[4]Theconference mentioned hero was held in Geneva in June 1901.
It was attended by the representatives of =Iskra,Zarya, theBorbaand theRabocheye Dyelogroups, the Union of Russian
Social-Democrats Abroad, the Bund and the revolutionarySotsial-Demokratorganisation. It was preliminary, and the final decisions
were put off until the “Unity” Conference in October 1901,
at which the =Rabocheye Dyeloand theIskragroups finally split
up.

[5]ListokRabochego Dyela(Rabocheye DyeloSupplement) was
published by the Union of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad in
Geneva, at irregular intervals, in 1900 and 1901.

ItsNo. 7 appeared in April 1901 and dealt with the student
movement.

[6]Areference to the events of May 4 and 7, 1901, in St. Petersburg,
in Vyborgskaya Storona and at the Obukhov Steel Works (known
as “Obukhov defence”).IskraNo. 5 (June 1901) carried a letter,
“May Day in Russia”, and Lenin’s article, “Another Massacre”
(see present edition, Vol. 5 pp. 25–30).

[7]Theauthor was I. V. Babushkin. His report, “Ivanovo–
Voznesensk”, appeared inIskraNo. 5, June 1901, in its section “May
Day in Russia ”. Babushkin’s role in the Russian Social–
Democratic movement (until his execution in Siberia by a tsarist punitive
expedition in 1905), in establishingIskraand in supplying it
with workers’ reports, is described in detail in Lenin’s obituary inRabochaya GazetaNo. 2, December 18 (31), 1910 (see present
edition, Vol. 16, pp. 361–64).